It’s been a while since my last post, but I decided to go back to my roots and examine some commercials! Fortunately, I’ve been able to move away from cable TV and towards streaming for all my entertainment needs, but unfortunately, that means I’m not seeing/critiquing commercials nearly as much as I used to. So without further ado, in an effort to stay sharp, I present my analysis of Crayola Silly Scents:

Right away we notice a classroom with kids inside, coloring with Crayola’s new Silly Scents markers. I would peg the main Ad execution technique as “slice of life” with a hint of nostalgia. What I mean by that is, we’ve all been there. Coloring with friends in class is a fairly common occurrence at elementary schools as far as I’m concerned. Given, it has been over a decade since I’ve been in an elementary school, but I digress. It seems completely within the realm of possibility, so let’s just go with that for now.

Next, we see a child sniff a marker and pull a watermelon out of his nose. Now, before I continue, I must bring up two things. First, this is something that I miss about seeing commercials regularly. Commercials can and often times are completely ridiculous. They only have so much time to relay the information about their product to us, the consumer, and I find it interesting to see how different brands go about doing that. Crayola is selling Crayons to parents that want their kids to have as much fun as the kids in this commercial. Once again, I can completely believe this scenario, that is until we see the CGI watermelon make an appearance. I will file this technique under “fantasy” because I can’t remember the last time I pulled 1/4th of a watermelon out of my nose. The second thing I’d like to bring up is the fact that this is probably going to upset some people. I mean, you can’t really put anything on the internet nowadays without people getting offended, but the image of kids sniffing markers? I don’t think that’s what the people over at D.A.R.E. had in mind. Regardless, I laughed out loud, so I’ll add “humor” to the list of techniques used.

Next, we see a classmate’s reaction to the watermelon sniffer and she also decides to take a whiff of her marker! Lucky for her, she got the cotton candy scent. That must be 100 times more pleasant to pull out of your nose than a watermelon. Either way, we get another reaction shot from the classmates, as well as another kid reaching to sniff his marker. I’d like to add the “demonstration” technique here as well. We get not one, not two, but three kids showing us at home how to effectively use this product! Sure you can color with it, but why use it for it’s intended purpose when we could smell it instead? If you’re a kid watching at home, you’ve got to be wanting to sniff some markers by now! And for those several reasons, I’m also adding “unique selling proposition” to the list of techniques. Crayola is leaving other marker/colored pencil companies in the dust! Those other companies may have cheaper markers that color just as well, but do their markers smell like watermelons, cotton candy, popcorn and who knows what else? I doubt it. Are the kids with those markers sniffing them anyways? I honestly don’t know, but I’m guessing probably.

Anyways, this was quite a ridiculous commercial, but I didn’t hate it. I assume Crayola has done their due diligence to ensure the marker fumes are nontoxic. Here’s the list of Ad techniques I spotted in this commercial: